The Print Management Blog

Your copier ran out of toner again, time to go buy a new one. You get to the store and find all the options for your device. One has the logo of your copier on it and one has a logo you’ve never seen before. The new company’s cartridge is a few bucks less than the name brand one so you think you will give it a try, save some bucks and be the office hero for the day. Well, don’t get ahead of yourself there. There can actually be some dangers with these clone toner cartridges.

Many people know the workings of an ink printer. You put ink cartridges into the machine and then a print head moves back and forth over the page as it slowly inches its way out of the machine. Is that really all there is to an ink printer though or has technology expanded?

There are multiple companies in the West Michigan area (Grand Rapids, Holland, Muskegon, Kalamazoo, Lansing) that can help your business manage your office printers, copiers and other imaging devices.

Lasers Resource is in the managed print trade and we often run into questions about our competitors. We always offer full transparency in what we do, so this shouldn’t be any different. Here is a list of some of some of the other companies in West Michigan that have a solid history in the area for office printer and copier maintenance and supply fulfillment contracts.

Your office chugs along and a nice, steady pace. It’s all smooth sailing and the building seems to be in harmony.

Then, your trusty printer runs out of toner. No big deal, right? You have a great managed print partner that knew this was coming and sent you a replacement cartridge already. You open the box and pull the new cartridge out only to find that it dwarfs the toner you just removed from your printer.

“There is no way this will fit!", you say aloud, “I think someone must have messed up our order!”

Leases can be a tricky thing to shake. Its almost like they are designed with the intention of keeping you in a lease forever. They do have nice benefits, financing and payment plans instead of all up front and, depending on the lease, the equipment doesn’t even have to be on your balance sheet. But they also have some negatives, think of a car lease, it’s something crazy like $0.25 a mile for any over the limit. Crazy stuff!

Printers, copiers, label printers, plotters… really anything that prints is normally more difficult than anyone originally thinks. Often, there are many different kinds of devices in your office from different manufacturers that all take different toner. Even though the drivers say “universal” they only mean their “universe”. Break downs should be easy, I mean there’s only paper moving through it, right? So why is it broken with a clear paper path?

Managed print has been fairly static for years. There is always a managed partner that will sell or, more often, lease you a printer or copier and give you a cost per page for what you print. That has worked since the beginning of managed print and is still a great option, but it shouldn’t be your only option. There are a lot of changes coming to leasing practices that will force a change on this old-time tradition.

What is one of the dreaded phrases to hear if you’re in IT? “The printer wont print.” Why? It’s vague, meaning you’ll have a long road ahead of you trying to figure it out. It could mean breaking out tools and opening the device, or it could mean that the driver is bad and you will need to spend time correcting it or creating yet another custom instance for another user; time that should be spent on other tasks that help drive your business forward. Someone once said, “Time equals money,” and that couldn’t be truer than with IT issues.

Most all copiers and multi-function printers (MFPs) have hard drives. It would be rare to find one that doesn’t anymore. Even most printers have hard drives in them. In truth, these hard drives can be a huge benefit if used correctly. They help you to do business faster, allowing you to save workflows, email addresses and more within the device itself. If mismanaged, though, these hard drives can cause pain and even breach government regulations. So, what is actually stored on these hard drives and why should you care?